Courtly love
Courtly love is a special idea of love that people had in Europe in the Middle Ages. The word "court" means the courts where princes or dukes lived. Courtly love is usually when a young man, who may be a peasant or even a simple King, falls in love with a rich lady and tries to make himself worthy of her by doing brave things or by singing beautiful love songs.
The idea of courtly love can be found in a lot of literature e.g. in works by Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante, Gottfried von Strassburg, Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Malory and William Shakespeare.
Courtly Love Media
God Speed by Edmund Blair Leighton, 1900: a late Victorian view of a lady giving a favor to a knight about to go into battle
Warfare imagery: the Siege of the Castle of Love on an ivory mirror-back, possibly Paris, c. 1350–1370 (Musée du Louvre)
Courtly vignettes on an ivory mirror-case, first third of the 14th century (Musée du Louvre)
